Have you ever moved your palace?

[Richard III]

Playing my first game as Japan this week, almost moved my capital to Tokyo for seemingly rational reasons in and around 700 AD. Chose not to, because, as always, I'm terrified of losing the culture points.

Just curious about experiences in this regard.

R.III

[eyrei]

I often move my capital to make my civ more efficient, but it is a tough choice if you have a science wonder or two in your capital. Most of the time, all you really lose is the age/culture bonus for the old palace, which is only 1/turn.

[Sodak]

I've done it twice. Both times because the AI beat me to a wonder. I had hundreds of shields piled up, so I built the FP instead, to minimize waste. In one game, my palace was only 5 tiles away - I used a leader to build it elsewhere. Of course, I didn't get that leader until a few turns after losing the wonder race. In the other, I didn't get a leader for quite a while afterwards, so it didn't sting as badly.

[Black Fluffy Lion]

once. It was on my first game and I had built everything in one city which had a great production rate. I saw that the only improvement left to build in that city was the palace, and since it would only take 10 turns, I decided to build it. Unfortunately, I forgot that relocating your palaces moves your capital, I just built it to keep the city building something.

[slothman]

None of the options seemed to apply to me. I don't think I would ever move it since I would lose the extra culture. I can always the forbidden palace to help with corruption. Plus if I did move it, it would probably be nearby. All of best cities are usually near my capital.

<offtopic> Definatly not like real-life. L.A., Houston, Detroit, Chicago, and others are not near D.C. For
</offtopic>

[eyrei]

Originally posted by slothman
None of the options seemed to apply to me. I don't think I would ever move it since I would lose the extra culture. I can always the forbidden palace to help with corruption. Plus if I did move it, it would probably be nearby. All of best cities are usually near my capital.

<offtopic> Definatly not like real-life. L.A., Houston, Detroit, Chicago, and others are not near D.C. For
</offtopic>

Sometimes you need to choose the position of both the palace and forbidden palace to minimize corruption. You only lose 1 culture/turn.

I usually don't do this until the industrial age.

[No.Dice]

I've disbanded my capital in the early game, to relocate it to a more central position. Unfortunatly it sets you back a little, and you lose a window to conduct an early war. Though i'm not very good at timing it.

I wonder if this will be changed this in 1.18?

[Panda]

I did once or twice in my early games, but not in the last dozen or so.

I like my capital to be the top city of the world

[BillChin]

Moving the palace is a powerful tactic. The cheap way to do this is to disband the capital (produce settler at pop 2 and no extra food). The other ways are to use a great leader, or late in the game actually produce the 1000 shields needed for a new palace.

Moving the palace is a good strategy for peninsula starts or coastal starts on a large land mass. A capital on the fringe makes for much higher corruption than a centered capital and increases the danger of culture flips. Distance to capital is a big factor in the culture flipping formula.

Another tactic is to build the Forbidden Palace close to the original capital before disbanding and moving. This is the most efficient way to get a Forbidden Palace without a great leader.

Be careful if you choose to disband the capital. The palace jumps to the best city in the empire. The best city formula is the same as for the F11 screen. Population, improvements and wonders are factors in this formula. Make sure that the new capital is the best city by a wide margin, because a bad jump can ruin a good game.

The downside includes losing some extra culture for an old city. A player does not lose all the generated culture, but does lose the bonus for 1000+ year old improvements such as the original palace. Another downside is that a player can not use the disband option effectively if they build wonders in the original capital.

[Magnus]

NEVER!!!

my people... they must remember..... from whence it all began....
we only fake a new capital when we smell a wonder percolating.

[Kefka]

No I have never moved my palace in any of my games, I mean who am I to move the center of the Universe

[Grey Knight]

I'm with BillChin, I always evaluate whether a palace move would be in my best interests. If so, I do two things - one is to build the FP "close" to where my existing capitol is -- this way I can use shields and not waste a GL. The other is to not improve the palace! I think that this is what increases the cost to build the palace.

In my current game I was figuring on a palace move (as I thought the palace would be the southernmost city), however it turned out that my original building site was OK.

To move it, I will either disband (settler @ size 2) or use a GL. I typically do the disband trick in early game, when all I'm doing is cranking settlers in the first place.

Cheers,
Shawn

[Edara]

I confess that I relocate my palace all games I play because it is the very most device for anti-corruption efficiency.

[elfstorm]

I've only moved my capital once, but I was wondering with culture being so important now why only have one palace? Sure have only one centre of government but why not multiple palaces?

It would help players aiming for a cultural victory.

[LordAzreal]

I relocated my palace once. I'm not really the least bit concerned about the culture of it, as I place culture near the borders as a higher priority than culture everywhere else.

Since my capital: Washington was a crappy city compared with several others, including the Persian city of Pasagardae (which I had conquered). As my borders changed, Washington was no longer the centre of my empire. On that small continent, Pasagardae was the most central city. Even though I hadn't conquered India yet, I knew that when I did, Pasagardae would be the centre of my empire. In the middle ages, I built my palace there, renaming the city to Lincoln.

In doing this, I really helped solve much of the problems of corruption and waste, as my new capital in Lincoln was in the geographical centre of the continent.

I really don't care about the meager culture points generated by a palace, I only care about its location. If my current capital isn't the centre-most city, then I'll consider building my new palace in the city that does exist in the centre of my empire. Purely for the reasons of trying to root out some of the corruption and waste.

[hzm]

I never move my capitol.

[Lt. 'Killer' M.]

Threereasons to move.

1) if I plan to conquer my continent, I often place the FP at the heart of my core empire (production there is fast), then leader-jump my palace to a good position. Last time, even though the cities profiting from the new palace were all below size 4, my corruption went down from -220 to -180. Just imagine what that means when they go up to size 12 like all the others already were!

2) the palace gets jumped to a city I captured and need to keep at all costs . like it has 2 happiness wonders, is surrounded by strong enemy towns and I cannot afford to attack them. Now I need to make sure it doesn`t flip so i have the wonders and catch up on the AI. Capitals never flip.........

both times it only really works for warmongers since it costs a wonder (leader) or for people who already are so far ahead that they can build the wonders w/o rushing.....

3) sometimes I use my capital for settler rushing (say it has floodplains/desert only and will never amount to good production), then closebuild around it. Later, I just disband it - and the palace jumps to a nearby town.


edit: btw: forget about the culture. moving capital is worth it only for large civs. For them, such a small portion of overall culture comes from the palace that it doesn`t hurt. After all the past culture isn`t lost, only the increase from age.